BooksForKidsBlog

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Beach Beast: When A Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore

IF YOU BUILD A PERFECT SANDCASTLE, A DRAGON WILL MOVE IN.

This kid is all set for fun in the sun, something grand in the sand, being brave in the waves.

But Mom has her nose in her book, and she's not even halfway through it. Dad is stretched out on his beach towel, pursuing nothing but the perfect tan and perhaps an undisturbed little nap in the sun. And his big sister? Don't even ask.

What this beach trip needs is a a little pick-me-up, a little excitement, a touch of some genuine boy-type imagination. What he needs is a dragon in his sandcastle! And, hey, there he is!

HE'LL SETTLE IN COZY AND PEEP AT YOU FROM INSIDE,AND YOU'LL WONDER HOW YOU EVER GOT SO LUCKY!

And for a while the boy and his dragon have a real beach ball! The dragon toasts up an instant batch of roasted marshmallows, and the two fly his kite the highest yet, blow bubbles that float out to sea on the ocean breeze, and toss the Frisbee back and forth. But then, the boy gets the urge to tell the family all about his beach dragon.

"UMM-HMMMN!"says Mom, turning the page in her page-turner.

He tries to get Dad to admire a feather from his dragon's wing.

"NICE SEAGULL FEATHER...." says Dad. "AND YOU KNOW WHAT FEATHERS ARE GOOD FOR?"

Dad gets off his towel long enough to grab that feather and give him a good tickling. No respect!

Sis spurns his collected dragon's teeth, declaring them nothing but pieces of shell.

What does a guy have to do to get appreciation for his dragon friend? It's time to ratchet up the mischief and see if he can get some admiration out of these dragon doubters.

He eats up all the peanut butter sandwiches Mom made for everyone's lunch, and leaves dragon clawprints on all the brownies! How about kicking a little sand on his sister? That should get his dragon some respect! But Dad has another point of view.

"WE'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS DRAGON BUSINESS!!!"

And in Jodi Moore's When a Dragon Moves In(Flashlight, 2011), our imaginative little boy reluctantly swears off dragon tenants--for now, but we know that that dragon will only vacate the sandcastle temporarily. Howard McWilliam's pencil and computer assisted illustrations get into the spirit of the pretense and underscore the humor of a sandcastle situation in a way youngsters will easily get into. A good way to kick off the summer beach season!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Hula Holiday: Froggy Goes to Hawaii by Jonathan London

"FROGGGGY!" YELLED HIS FATHER.

"WHA-A-A-T?"

"UP AND AT 'EM! TODAY IS THE DAY WE'RE GOING ON VACATION."

"YIPPEE!" CRIED FROGGY, AND HE SANG, "WE'RE GOING ON VACATION.

"WE'RE GOING TO HAWAII!"

The effervescent Froggy and his family are off for a fun-filled week in Hawaii, and they waste no time getting on the tourist trail when they arrive. Dad has a well-worn word of wisdom for Froggy as they land:

"DON'T ACT LIKE A NINCOMPOOP!"

BUT WHEN THEY GOT TO HAWAII, FROGGY WENT BANANAS!

For a hyper-kinetic character like Froggy, it's a suitably whirlwind tour of near disasters at all the scenic sites--a bamboo forest, the rim of a volcano and a real lava field, a waterfall, a hula lesson complete with grass skirts all around, a boat trip to see giant sea turtles, and at last a wiki wiki trip to Waikiki, where Froggy winds up getting more than his feet wet:

THE NEXT DAY HE SURFED, RIDING HIS DAD'S SHOULDERS WITH HIS HANDS OVER DAD'S EYES.

"WIPEOOOOUT!"

As usual, it's a frenetic fun-filled event when Froggy hits Hawaii, concluding on the last day with a rescue at sea for the stranded Froggy and his long-suffering dad. The ebullient Froggy is fresh as a daisy, but his too-pooped-to-pop papa groans...

"WHEN WE GET BACK HOME, I NEED A VACATION!"

Froggy fans will love the slapstick silliness of Froggy's twentieth adventure, Jonathan London's Froggy Goes to Hawaii (Viking, 2011), ably illustrated as always by Frank Remkicwicz. Pair this one with that other summertime treat, Froggy Goes to Camp, for school's-out storytime fun in the sun.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

No More Snoresville! Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer by Megan MCDonald

L.D.O.S.! LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

SHE, JUDY MOODY, WAS GOING TO HAVE THE BEST SUMMER EVER!

RARE!

Judy Moody thinks it's time to take charge of her destiny! No more letting whatever happens happen--a strategy which so far has given her a bunch of bummer summers!

Judy charts out a summer of thrills and challenges for herself and her friends, Rocky, Frank, Amy and, whether she likes it or not, brother Stink. Then she calls a plenary session of the T.P. (Toad Pee) Club (initiation requirements: hold their pet toad until, er, nature takes its course) to lay out the PLAN, which she titles JUDY MOODY'S MEGA-RARE NOT BUMMER SUMMER DARE!

Judy proposes a competition, complete with a point system, to rate the summer daredevils and together they draw up a summer of dares--tightrope walking, mega-roller coaster riding, Bigfoot snaring. Everyone takes up their teacher Mr. Todd's challenge to sleuth out his summer job. Judy even asks her club to dare her to catch poison ivy.

And then the Not-Bummer Summer hits a snag. Mom and Dad are going to have to go away to look after Nana and her broken leg, and their seldom-seen Aunt Opal (Aunt Awful), who is between assignments as a guerrilla artist, volunteers to stand in. Then Rocky and Amy turn out to have better offers--Rocky to attend a circus camp and Amy to do anthropology with her mom in Borneo. and Judy's season of thrills indeed looks like another bummer summer!

Megan McDonald's movie tie-in novel, Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (Judy Moody Movie Tie-In) (Candlewick, 2011), is a full-fledged Judy Moody sequel, with our moody, quirky heroine managing to have a super summer after all, with ice-cream truck chases, midnight cemetery creeping crawling, and all-night Bigfoot stakeouts, with Aunt Opal on board with the whole thing and even designing a little midnight guerrilla art sortie on her own. With or without the summer movie, this newest in the best-selling Judy Moody series will provide some non-bummer summer reading for the early elementary set.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Bedtime Buccaneers: Pajama Pirates by Andrew Kramer

THE MOON BEGINS ITS EVENING SHOW.PAJAMA PIRATES YELL, "OH, NO!"

LET OTHERS SLEEP;THEIR DAY IS DONE.THE TREASURE HUNT HAS JUST BEGUN.

Three kids are ready for bed in their tower bedchamber, pajamas on and beds turned down, but they are definitely not ready for sleep. It's time to escape into their own fantasy adventures, pirates all!

The braided rug morphs into ocean waters, their beds become rowboats, and their brooms become oars, as the three row out to their waiting ship to begin their night's adventures.

And what adventures their imaginations afford them! A nearing ship turns out to be a marauder's man o' war and the attack is on. Cannons roar, swords flash; and it doesn't go well for the pajama pirates.

"YE BE SHARK BAIT, SWIM OR SINK!"PAJAMA PIRATES STOP TO THINK.

Quickly the youngsters cover their shattered mast with their mainsail, and in the fog the pursuing privateers perceive a giant ghost advancing on them and begin to retreat in terror.

Just as the pajama pirates batten their hatches, hoist anchor, and pull away from their foes, they hear the dreaded order to go to sleep floating up from downstairs.

"JUST FIVE MINUTES MORE, PLEASE!"

But there's nothing for it except for the pajama pirates to walk the plank, as their seven seas become the sky and their ship again becomes their room, and one by one they fall into their own waiting beds.

"G'NIGHT, MATEYS! SURE WAS FUN!"

Andrew Kramer's latest, Pajama Pirates (Harper, 2010) features easy-reading verse in a charming fantasy adventure for pirate fans. The text is greatly extended by the delightful illustrations of Leslie Lammle, done with plenty of deep blues to suggest the nighttime setting, and rounded childlike figures which suggest the work of author-illustrators Astrid and Ingrid Lindgren of earlier times, giving the book a pleasant old-fashioned feeling. A fine bedtime story for imaginative young buccaneers who are not quite ready for sweet dreams.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

In Plain View: Where's Walrus? by Stephen Savage

Just another daybreak at the zoo--the animals bored and motionless in their confines, a snoozing keeper sagging in his chair outside his guardhouse--but a with-it walrus in his pool is eying a serendipitously open gate.

In the turn of a page the walrus is out of there, and the rotund mustachioed guard, clutching a ineffectually small dog-catcher-type net, is in hot pursuit.

Where's Walrus?

Walrus, of course, is right there, motionlessly mimicking the entrance fountain's other stone mermaid, invisible to the hapless keeper.

The search goes on with the next turn of a page, where the walrus is invisible in plain sight, one of a row of gray-suited, black-derbied coffee drinkers seated on identical stools at the counter of mid-century diner. The keeper looks straight past him without recognition, while Walrus favors us with a gleefully conspiratorial look.

With each new page the walrus blends into the busy city scene--a line of identical hard-hatted bricklayers, one of three frou-froued mannikins in a millinery shop, a red-hatted firefighter bravely holding a spouting fire hose aimed at a conflagration, a high-kicking chorine in a musical hall revue, and one of a row of landscape painters at their easels in the park. In each scene our hero, so obviously a walrus, yet manages to blend in with the cookie-cutter forms of the people engage in daily activities in a static but vital cityscape.

The befuddled zookeeper grows more exasperated, and the walrus plainly enjoys his game of cat and mouse--until, hiding amidst a line of red-capped high divers, he just has to stand out from the crowd with an amazing double flip dive--and his cover is blown, just as the zookeeper suddenly sees, not just his quarry, but the possibilities of his talented charge. The final spread shows Walrus, back where he belongs, but with a high diving pool where his finally gets the attention he deserves.

Steven Savage's new Where's Walrus? (Scholastic, 2011) appears to be a simple picture puzzle book for small children, and it is. But its simple lines and flat color belie the retro sophistication of its Adobe Illustrator computerized art. Playfully spoofing the Where's Waldo? premise in his skillful manipulation of color, form, and line, Savage achieves just the right trompe l'oeil effect for his target audience with a touch of humor to please any age reader. A wordless picture book which is the last word.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

A Girl 'n' Her 'Gator: Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator by Mo Willems

Amanda and Alligator are BFFs. Alligator pines and waits impatiently when Amanda is gone from his home in her room, even when she comes back with a stack of library books to read with him. She always has a surprise for him, and sometimes Alligator has a surprise in wait for her!

"SOMETHING TICKLES," SAID ALLIGATOR. AMANDA WAS READING HER LIBRARY BOOK.

"WHAT TICKLES?" SAID AMANDA.

"I DO!" YELLED ALLIGATOR. AND HE DID!

Amanda loves Alligator's silly joke, giggling appropriately as he tickles her, and Alligator is proud of his surprise. But then he notices that something really is tickling him.

"SOMETHING TICKLES!"

"THAT'S A FUNNY JOKE," SAID AMANDA, "BUT I AM NOT GOING TO FALL FOR IT AGAIN."

"NO, REALLY," SAID ALLIGATOR. SOMETHING WAS ATTACHED TO HIS TAIL.

"IT'S A PRICE TAG!" SAID AMANDA."IT SAYS SEVEN CENTS," SAID AMANDA.

"SEVEN CENTS? I AM WORTH ONLY SEVEN CENTS?"

Alligator is crushed. What kind of best friend can be bought for seven cents? How could he be worth so little? Could Amanda really love a seven-cent alligator dug out of the sale bucket? But then Amanda says the only thing that can restore his self-image:

"NO ONE WANTED TO BUY YOU," SAID AMANDA, "BECAUSE THEY KNEW YOU WERE MEANT TO BE MY BEST FRIEND."

Alligator is happy, secure that he is Amanda's best friend for life. But then comes the worse surprise ever.

Amanda goes out and comes back to their room with a brand-new Panda, one that Alligator is sure did NOT come from any sale bucket. Will Alligator be Amanda's best friend no more?

Mo Willems' just-out Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator! (HarperCollins, 2011) adds a new pair to his repertoire of beginning reader best pal books. Willems' easy cartoon style and matter-of-fact style of droll storytelling, best illustrated in his Seuss Award-winning series Elephant and Piggie, here finds a new hero and heroine to explore the dimensions of friendship for the emergent reader.

Friday, June 24, 2011

No Baths for Buccaneers! Pirates Don't Take Baths by John Segal

NO, NO, NO!I'M NOT TAKING A BATH!

NOT TONIGHT. NOT TOMORROW. NEVER!I'M A PIRATE, AND PIRATES NEVER TAKE BATHS!

When a piglet tot with piratical pretensions puts his trotter down, Mom knows it's time for a little preschool psychology. She points out that our tot can't be a pirate, because he always gets seasick!

It doesn't work. The piglet changes his persona, presto-chango.

YEP. I'M A RANGE-RIDING, CATTLE-DRIVING COWBOY!

The piglet may be imaginative, but Mom is practical.

"COWBOYS DON'T MIND SLEEPING ON THE HARD GROUND. DO YOU?"

Hmmm! Maybe home on the range is not so cushy.

"FINE! I'M AN ESKIMO. THEY CAN'T TAKE BATHS. IT'S TOO COLD!

Mom counters this ploy by pointing out that Eskimos also have to eat lots and lots of whale blubber.

The game is now seriously on. How many hydro-phobic personalities can our dirty little piglet come up with to get out of his bath? How about an astronaut? No bathtubs in space, right? Well, no, Mom agrees. But "going to the bathroom" is a bit, um, problematical in zero gravity as well.

Oh, yeah.

But this mom finds a way to get her preschooler piglet into the suds, even if he does don flippers and snorkel to do it, in John Segal's latest, Pirates Don't Take Baths (Philomel, 2011). Bathtime battles are part of being a parent and being a preschooler, and Segal's charming illustrations make getting that little landlubber into the briny a little bit more fun.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Uneasy Lies the Head...: Cleopatra Confesses by Carolyn Meyer

Father turns and takes my face in his hands so that I am forced to look into his eyes.

"I am not sure you understand, Cleopatra.

I'm not sure you realize yet that my wish is for you to rule Egypt someday, and that burden--and the power--will then become yours."

As the third daughter, with two younger brothers bearing their father's name, Ptolemy, Cleopatra is not the natural successor to the throne, but from the time her father the Pharoah Ptolemy XII, gives her that charge, young Cleopatra begins to prepare herself. Superbly educated, fluent in many languages, trained in science, mathematics, and the literature of the ancient world, Cleopatra is a talented scholar, and her vain and rivalrous older sisters, Tryphaena and Berenike, sense the threat of her intelligence even by the time she reaches the age of eleven.. Despite their schemes to thwart her at every turn. Cleopatra remains her father's favorite, and as she matures into a politically astute and beautiful young woman during her father's three-year exile in Rome, she comes to fear for her life as her sisters seize the throne.

But as Cleopatra nears the age of fifteen, Berenike has Tryphaena murdered, and although their father returns from Rome, where he has borrowed vast sums beyond Egypt's means to repay to raise an army to take back his throne, even the defeat and execution of Berenike doesn't give Cleopatra any security. Her father makes her his queen, his titular co-ruler, but forces her to marry her younger brother Ptolemy XIII, still a child, and the crushing debt and failures of the Nile's inundation for successive years leave Egypt vulnerable to the empire-building Romans. With her father's death and the very young Ptolemy proclaimed Pharoah, Cleopatra needs a strong ally, and finds it through her seduction of Julius Caesar, who temporarily vanquishes her brother and helps her secure her claim to the throne of Egypt.

Cleopatra, the quintessential celebrity chick of history, gets a measured narrative in Carolyn Meyer's engrossing new historical fiction title, Cleopatra Confesses (Simon & Schuster, 2011). As a young adult read, her story has all the right stuff, "mean girls" in the form of her shallow and malevolent older sisters, a loyal friend, her struggle to find her place in what must be one of history's more dysfunctional royal families, and her steely determination to survive to bring stability to her nation, realizing early on that she is alone in that role:

I must... keep the reins of power in my own hands if I am to restore prosperity to Egypt. The welfare of the people rests entirely on me. I trust only myself, and I am ready.

Meyer hits the high points of Cleopatra's known history, her childhood trip down the Nile with the Pharoah which gives her insight into her kingdom, her struggle to stay alive during the precarious rule of her sisters and the young Ptolemies, her contrived meeting with the conquering Julius Caesar to gain his support of her rule, their voyage down the Nile, her subsequent romance with Marcus Antonius after Caesar's assassination, and her own suicide in her tomb to avoid her certain captivity in chains by the future emperor, Caesar Augustus. A useful appendix, "Cleopatra in History," includes a brief bibliography, ten relevant web sites, a time line, and a short summary of the Egyptian and Ptolomaic deities and calendar, making this historical novel a useful piece of adjunct reading for ancient history courses.

In Meyer's skillful prose, the much-portrayed and parodied Cleopatra becomes a real child and young woman, shaped in the crucible of the palace intrigues and international politics of her time, accustomed to luxury and yet, except for a very few trusted friends, alone and on her own in a terrible time. Meyer manages to walk the line between grim historicity and the superficialities of princess pandering in this account, portraying the legendary Cleopatra as a young woman both as fascinating as history has always made her and yet humanly recognizable for modern young adult readers.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Dogged Devotion: Princess Zelda and the Frog by Carol Gardner

"I'LL GIVE YOU MY CROWN, MY DIAMOND CHOKER, AND A GIFT CARD FOR A MASSAGE," SAID PRINCESS ZELDA.

"NO, THANKS, SWEET CAKES," HE SAID. "IF YOU WILL LET ME EAT FROM YOUR GOLDEN BOWL, DRINK FROM YOUR GOLDEN GOBLET, SLEEP ON YOUR GOLDEN PILLOW, AND PROMISE TO BE MY BFF, I WILL GET YOUR BALL."

In Carol Gardner's and Shane Young's just-published Princess Zelda and the Frog (Feiwel & Friends, 2011), the frog drives a hard bargain with his princess just as in the classic fairy tale, The Frog Prince. But in this breezy modernized version, the beautiful and delicate princess role is played by Zelda, in all her bulbous bulldog beauty, gussied up in perfect pink princess style in silk gown and lavender tiara, while her rescuer/BFF wannabe, the Frog in the well, is played by an equally photogenic bulldog, attired in what is obviously a green velveteen costume which leaves his mutt's mug exposed beneath the froggy hood.

In cleverly staged photos, Shane Young has his super-model bulldogs replicate the classic story fairly faithfully, while Carol Gardner's witty modern text ("See you later, Sweetums," croaks the Frog after slurping up the banquet's fine dishes from Zelda's golden bowl) gives this retelling the delicious flavor of full-blown parody.

The Frog is persistent in enforcing Princess Zelda's promise, and that night, when he gains entrance to Zelda's bedchamber, he settles down to snore rather grossly, and Zelda, already an insomniac, fears that she will never sleep again in close quarters with such a bedfellow.

But after all, this is a fairy tale.

A FEELING OF PEACE WASHED OVER HER.

AND BEFORE LONG THE THE PRINCESS WAS LULLED INTO A DEEP SLEEP HERSELF.

"A promise is a promise"--even for petulant princesses--is the evergreen theme of this humorous reprise of the old tale, and in true virtue-rewarded form, Frog is restored to his true nature by the keeping of the promise to be the princess' best friend. And--you guessed it--by morning's light he is transformed into, well, as handsome a prince as a boy bulldog can be, complete with his own crown and silken threads in a happy, BFFs-forever ending in the best fairy tale tradition.

Photographer-designer Young stages the book's illustrations in a charming grade-school play format, with poster-painted-style backdrops and cut-out clouds hanging down on wires in the outdoor scenes, while posing his patient pooches in all sorts of hilarious vignettes in their improbable costumes. It's a rollicking romp through the Brothers Grimm's tale that is sure to tickle the giggles of the picture book crowd, especially those who have already met the traditional tale. And for those who prefer their fairy tales on the fractured side, pair this one with Jon Scieszka's very funny {THE FROG PRINCE, CONTINUED BY Scieszka, Jon(Author)}The Frog Prince, Continued.[paperback]Puffin Books(Publisher).

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience: Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

It only made sense that the absolute violet blackness all around her must be death. It was cold and silky, and it went nowhere....

After a while, though, she began to realize that the perfect darkness was moving. It was moving faster than she ever could have imagined, swirling past her a amazing speed. Then it wasn't the darkness that was moving. She was the one. She could curve in long, dizzy sweeps.

It was a living, leaping darkness, full of shapes that were just as free as she was. Luce knew at that moment that she'd never experienced anything nearly as beautiful as this power and this gracefulness. And at that moment of deepest joy, Luce began to hear the sound.

The closest word for it was music. She thought the beauty of it must be more than she could bear.

Abandoned by her mother and orphaned with the death of her kind but irresponsible father, Lucette is sent to stay with her uncle, a dark, often drunken and cruel recluse on the wild coast of Alaska. When he finally assaults her and leaves her lying on a cliff above the raging sea, she finds herself falling toward the sea, there somehow to be transformed into another being. Undead but not exactly human, Luce realizes that she has been somehow metamorphosed into a mermaid like the those of the tribe led by the strong and beautiful Caterina, who pulls her from the deep, shares her own breath with her, and explains the world which she has entered.

It first to Luce it seems paradise found, a circle of fantastically beautiful girls who care for her, welcome her, and teach her how to live beneath the sea, nurturing her in a perfect society of sisters, all of them sharing the same human history of indifference and abuse.

But slowly Luce learns that the tribe has another mission, to seek out passing ships, enchant their sailors and passengers with their otherworldly music, and lead them to their deaths, all in revenge for the abuse done to young girls in their world. Luce, as a novice, a metaskaza, goes along on their next hunt, and hearing the superb song of their queen, Caterina, she begins to sing, too, discovering that she has a music within her which already rivals the dominating song of Caterina.

But there is something left in Luce, something of humanity's better nature, which feels sympathy, and even the beginnings of forgiveness, for the people her songs help enchant and draw to their deaths, and she is appalled at the ruthlessness with which the tribe pursues to the death the survivors who resist their siren call. At last she is even compelled to save one drowning boy, dragging him ashore on an island, a thing altogether forbidden by the Timakh, the mermaidian law. And then she secretly witnesses Caterina herself, consorting physically with a beautifully young man before she drowns him, an unthinkable and fatal rupture of the Timakh in their own queen.

And when a new metaskaza, Annais, comes into the group, the close society begins to unravel. Annais is vain and shallow, pilfering the jewels and fine clothes from off the corpses of those she chooses to murder purely for their finery, conspiring to force a schism aimed at the overthrow of Caterina, and Luce comes to see that that spark of humanity which she cannot expunge from her own soul will not allow her to remain in that fallen society.

There has been enough death,, Luce thought. Enough death to last until the world rolls away and leaves the sun forever.

Many authors, most recently Stephanie Meyer in her Twilight series, have attempted to use the timeless tale of the mortal character forced to choose between immortality and power and the divine spark of the human capacity for mercy and forgiveness. It's a difficult task, requiring the author first to create a credible setting that is not exactly of this world, a "middle earth" (or in this case a middle sea ) and then to introduce that fatal choice believably into the plot for his or her protagonists.

In this regard, Sarah Porter's forthcoming Lost Voices (Lost Voices (Trilogy)) (Harcourt, 2011) succeeds in a way Meyer's blockbuster best-selling romance series does not. More the primal tale of fallen angels rather than Meyer's daemon lover reprise, Porter's novel, graced with seductive lyrical writing, beautiful and seemingly effortless in its descriptive passages, does not flinch nor punt (as does Meyer) when it comes to the ultimate moral choice she places before her character. This is perhaps not a book for everyone: there is a depth of theme here which also requires a heavy measure of that "willing suspension of disbelief" required of the fantasy quest. Readers will finish the book with a feeling of dissatisfaction that Luce's coming-of-age transformation is not completely realized until they learn that this is but the first book of a planned trilogy, Porter wisely choosing not to issue the full story in one vast unwieldy volume.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Flipping for Paleontology: Flip-O-Storic designed by Sara Ball

"Toy and movable books" abound in board books for the preschool readers, a whole genre of books with gizmos such as flip panels, cutouts, pull tabs, turning gears, and other irresistible moving parts to keep little hands busy and little eyes and minds engaged.

But for older readers, a book which combines serious science information, interactive fun, and a jumping-off place for an elementary-age reader's imagination to have free play-- that's a real gem. Sara Ball's newest design, Flip-o-storic (Abbeville Kids, 2011) is that book.

The device in this solid and well-thought-out interactive book is a simple one. With a spiral binding, each heavy-duty, vertically divided "page" contains one-third of a prehistoric animal, familiar ones such as the saber-toothed tiger (Smilodon) and the mammoth (Mammuthus Primigenitus), and less-known ones--eleven in all--Dorudon, Coelodona Angiquitatis, Unitatherium, Macrauchenia, Gostornis, Argyrologis, and Icaronycteris. Succinct but solid information about the animal's habitat, morphology, behavior and the meaning of its scientific name, is included in three incisive paragraphs above each column of each "page."

After the complete eleven pages are read and the detailed illustrations studied, then the hands-on fun begins as the reader can flip each section separately to construct his or her own prehistoric beast. Initially, it's just a hoot to make some preposterous critters such as the combo shown on the cover, but contained within even that free-form exercise is some scientific learning. What would an aquatic animal with tusks do and be? How about a "long neck" with the powerful hindquarters of a Smilodon? There are nearly a thousand possibilities here!

With its companion book, also designed by Sarah Ball, Flip-o-saurus (Abbeville Kids, 2010), these books offer young paleontologists an introduction to prehistoric animals that provides both amusement for toddlers and an insight into animal taxonomy, how scientists classify animals by their morphology and their life cycles for older students who bring a little "book-learning" to the table here, with fun for all along the way.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

A Adds Awesome Alliteration::ABC Kids by Basher

URSULA'S UNCLE UNICYCLES UNDERWATER.

VERA VACUUMS VARIOUS VEGETABLES.

Alphabet books abound in every form and style. Kitty cats and plump puppies, cows and pigs romp alphabetically in some. Others, such as Dr. Seuss' On Beyond Zebra! (Classic Seuss), even take the twenty-six letters of the standard abecedarius beyond the familiar and into the creative world of fantasy.

Simon Basher's new Basher: ABC Kids (Kingfisher, 2011) combines Basher's familiar pygmy clothespin-shaped people and globular critters, done up in bold colors set against pastel backgrounds, with tongue-twisting creative captions that anchor and reinforce the sounds of the featured letter and may extend the working vocabulary of early childhood education students. Basher cleverly uses the improbabilities of his captions ("Walter's worms wear white wigs") to keep kids involved as he extends the humor with his inventive illustrations.

In their starred review, Booklist says "... there's more to this than just cute. The obvious care that has been put into the design, format, and word choices is what makes this [book] a delight. . . .

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Color Me Out There: Chamelia by Ethan Long

WHEN OTHERS ZIG,CHAMELIA ZAGS.

WHEN OTHERS ROCK,CHAMELIA ROLLS.

Chamelia has a problem fitting in. A girl with fashion sense, flare, and a desire for the limelight, she has the misfortune to be born a chameleon. After all, blending in is what it's all about when you're a chameleon.

At school, everybody is green. Everyday. They dress in sensible, basic neutrals and try to slip by under the radar. That is not Chamelia's style.

Bright colors, bold prints, plenty of feathers and frippery, bows and baubles are more her style. When she plays Goldilocks in the school play, she dresses as a Viking warrior maiden, giving the kid playing Father Bear more than the usual surprise when he finds her sleeping in Baby's bed. When she goes biking, her helmet has bright designs and a long plume on top. And she insists on playing soccer in sequined platform shoes. She HAS to get herself noticed--no matter what she does.

But her parents and teachers point out that she needs to balance her act. There's a time when standing out in the crowd is not a good idea, when joining in is the way to go. Can she find a way to be one of the group and still be her outstanding self?

Ethan Long's easy-going little picture book, Chamelia (Little, Brown, 2011) shows the opposite of the usual story of the shy child who learns to take her turn in the spotlight, and his charming little Chamelia becomes a model of the middle way, a chameleon who learns to blend in and be herself at the same time.

Their differences must all be on the inside, until the identical twins go to get their identical haircuts. Ling sIts perfectly still and gets a perfect haircut with perfect straight bangs.

Ting, however, can't sit still. She fidgets with her feet and hands. And when the tiny trimmings from her bangs hit her nose, she sneezes. With that sneeze, the startled barber's shears cut a big uneven whack out of hers.

Now the twins are not exactly alike anymore!

In the six short chapters of her 2011 Theodore Seuss Geisel-Award-winning beginning reader, Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same! (Little, Brown, 2010) Grace Lin shows all the ways Ling and Ting are not alike. In one chapter," Ling just cannot manage to eat with chopsticks; Ting suggests that she could use her own deftly welded chopsticks to feed her sister, but Ling has a better idea--a fork! Ting prefers fairy tale books from the library, but Ling only wants nonfiction books about dogs. And in doing card tricks, both girls strike out as Ting can't find the right card for her card trick, but by the time she realizes she's done the trick wrong, Ling has forgotten the card she's supposed to remember anyway.

In the chapter titled "Making Dumplings," the girls follow the exact same steps, but Ting overstuffs her dumplings so that they come out all lumpy-bumpy compared to Ling's perfect smooth ones. But that difference suits Ting just fine:

"YOUR DUMPLINGS ARE DUMP-LINGS," SHE SAYS. "MINE ARE DUMP-TINGS!"

Viva la difference! in Lin's engaging little essay on winning at twindom. With starred reviews from both Booklist and School Library Journal and a Geisel honor award for one of the best easy readers of the year, Lin's kickoff entry for what should be a winning twin series is like getting two for the price of one for emergent readers.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

BUT HE WANTED TO BE THE BIGGEST BURLIEST PIRATE IN THE WORLD--AND THE RICHEST!

Bart sets out on a world-spanning voyage to prove his mettle. And, as he finds out, there's only one thing standing in his way, the Pacific Ocean's mighty mistress, Mean Mo.

MEAN MO WAS THE MADDEST, MIGHTIEST PIRATE THIS SIDE OF THE PACIFIC.

THE EARTH BEING ROUND, THEY MET IN THE MIDDLE.

The two battling buccaneers challenge each other to a series of heroic contests: they swim miles with the sharks; they compete in a shotput match, using cannonballs; they arm-wrestle and mast-climb and even compete in an audit of their treasure troves. Their watching crews act as judges, and their decision--a TIE every time!

Then Mean Mo tries a feminine ploy. Instead of another insult, she offers him a gift from her cache of goodies. Not to be outdone, Bad Bart returns with an even bigger gift, and the pirate potlache is on!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Julie reached for the red quilted coat. Sticking her hands into each of the pockets, she wiggled her fingers, searching for tears that would need mending. Sure enough, she found a little rip in the seam of one pocket. Something rustled as she withdrew her fingers. She felt a small folded piece of paper caught in the lining.

"Hey, look!" Julie held up the folded square for her sister to see. "A letter!" She unfolded the paper. "Oh, wait--it's in Chinese!"

When Julie offers to help out at her mom's used clothing shop Gladrags, she stumbles upon an intriguing puzzle. Taking the obviously very old paper square jammed with characters to her Chinese-American friend Ivy's for a sleepover, she shows the note to Ivy's grandmother, who recognizes the note instantly as the one sent with her by her mother in 1919 when she immigrated to San Francisco to be with her merchant father there.

Grandmother Jiao Jie had thought the note lost during the voyage, and excitedly reads it aloud to a circle of friends and customers at their restaurant, The Happy Panda, and then tells the story of her ocean journey and her detention at Angel Island with another girl, Mei Meng, a "paper daughter," a girl whose family sent her to America claiming to be the child of an established Chinese-American family. Mei Meng, too, has a "coaching note" with many details about her supposed home village and the family which she is to claim, and both girls eventually pass their interrogation and are allowed to enter the United States, Mei to move in with her adopting family in Oakland, taking with her Kai, an old ragdoll that Jiao Jie gives her as a token of their friendship.

As she reads the note aloud, Jiao Jie wonders again why in the note her mother had given her a strange instructions:

"... give Kai to Father when you arrive; she will bless you both with riches until we meet again, my dear Jiao Jie."

Then when Julie and Ivy go upstairs to spend the night with Ivy's grandparents, they find the apartment has been broken into, with only two objects taken--their old Chinese dolls. Julie is intrigued with this mystery. And when they find the two dolls in the bins behind the store, both with their heads ripped off, Julie is sure that there is some connection to Grandmother's story. As the girls research the story, Julie begins to suspect that the doll the thief was after was indeed Kai, the old ragdoll Jiao Jie gave to her friend long ago, and that the "riches" mentioned in the coaching note must have been concealed within the doll itself. Ivy's grandmother recalls that when she was reunited with her Father, he immediately asked her about the valuable jade necklace her mother was to send with her to stake his new business, a necklace which she believed her mother had not given to her before she left.

Now Julie and Ivy know that the jade necklace had indeed made the voyage, hidden safely inside Jiao Jie's old doll and that her mother, too ill to make the trip, was sure that her father would understand the meaning of the final sentence of the note. And the two friends also realize that that necklace may still be safe inside the ragdoll, and that Jiao Jie's friend Mei Meng may still have it. The two girl sleuths now realize that someone else is searching for Mei Meng and the doll and that they must find Mei before the would-be thief does.

In her latest in the Julie Mystery series, set in the San Francisco of the early 1970s, author Kathryn Reiss interweaves the setting of Julie's time with the history of Chinese immigrants to the area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Reiss constructs a skillfully developed and absorbing mystery which takes her two detectives deep into San Francisco's and Oakland's Chinatown, to the microfilm archives of the library, and a tour of the facilities at the detention center at Angel Island in search of the elusive Mei Meng. Puzzle of the Paper Daughter: A Julie Mystery (American Girl Mysteries) (American Girl, 2010) maintains the high level of writing and historical fact which is the hallmark of the notable American Girl series and includes a pictorial historical appendix which adds much to this suspenseful Julie adventure.

For readers who wish to delve into this subject further, there is also Jeanette Ingold's fine historical novel for middle readers, Paper Daughter and M. Elaine Mar's personal account, Paper Daughter: A Memoir.

About

About Me

Retired after 32+ years as an elementary librarian, I really miss the joy of bringing together the right book with the right reader at the right time. Loving both kids and books equally as I do, perhaps helping children and the adults who care about them find good books through this blog is the next best thing to being there.
I am an Amazon associate, which means that clicking on the image of a book I reviewed or on the title of any book mentioned in the review will take you to full publishing and purchasing information, as well as other reviews and comments for most books. I also receive review copies from publishers or authors from time to time, with no implied promise that the books will be reviewed favorably or at all.